Can anyone recommend a suitable alternative RAID controller that will work in a
Compaq Proliant 3000R? I'm having some problems finding compatibility with the
hot-swap drive cage's 68-pin open connectors and 40MB/s transfer rate. What is the best
non-compaq controller (AMI, DPT, Mylex? What model??) that will work without the
nightmares I've had - I'll pay whatever as long as I don't spend long-ass nights trying to hack
this proprietary Compaq machine any further than necessary?

As a side note, what hardware is ftp.freebsd.org running on? They claim to be
running hardware RAID 5 - what controller? I just want something that will work - my
brain is sooo fried.

On the topic of trying to get the Compaq SmartRAID running on FreeBSD 4.0, I
think I'm basically giving up.

I am assuming at this time 4.0 does not seem to support the Compaq Smart raid
controllers - even though there does seem to be a device driver for this controller, it must
not be functioning.

I'm open to any ideas on this issue. Here's my situation:

Compaq Proliant 3000R with Smart 2HD 2-channel raid scsi

The system works fine with the on-board scsi but I cannot install ANY version of
FreeBSD from the ide cdrom. I've heard that the Compaq (proprietary piece of crap) raid controller takes over resources reserved for the ide interface and creates
compatibility problems - I've also heard there is a "hack" for 3.4 to use the controller at
the expense of making all atapi devices inoperable. I've tried everything short of the 3.4
hack - I will reluctantly go back to an older version because it may have more support -
ironic when there does seem to be a driver that recognizes the controll but doesn't
function properly.

I've tried to install 3.3-4.0 via ftp and it fails to produce a kernel on the
system. I've tried to install the current 4.0 snapshot - it fails with a message saying
"trying to link the kernel but not found - you'll have a very hard time getting the hard
drive to boot without a kernel". I can't try any manual copying becuase the holographic
shell doesn't have any commands that I can find to mount devices or even copy files -
that's probably my ignorance of how to hack the post-install environment - any ideas?

In any case, I'll gladly trash this Compaq controller in favor of something
which will perform better, handle the Compaq's hot swap drive cage and do at least the
40M/s transfer rate of the scsi plane - money is not an issue as long as it works.
Productive suggestions will be rewarded with a very large array of good kharma -
guaranteed.

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majo...@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message